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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Daring Bakers - Tiramisu!

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Now, I've made tiramisu before, many times. Many varieties...berry, pumpkin, deconstructed...But, I've never made it completely from scratch. Savoiardi (lady fingers) are $1.50 per package at Trader Joe's and mascarpone (like an Italian version of cream cheese...only better) is pretty cheap there as well. I do always make my own zabaglione and cream.

So when the challenge called for making everything completely from scratch, I thought "EEK!" It sounded like a lot of work, and frankly, work that didn't seem worth it to me.

But...Joel was out of town and I had some free time on my hands so, I went for it! And I am SO glad I did. It really wasn't very time consuming at all...the mascarpone took 15 minutes of stirring and then 24 hours in the fridge. The savoiardi took about 15 minutes, and I made the pastry cream and zabaglione while they were baking.

Cooking the cream for the mascarpone:

Draining the mascarpone:

Meanwhile, the girls called Daddy to say their good nights:

The savoiardi ready to go into the oven:

And coming out of the oven:

While they were baking, I made the zabaglione. YUM:

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the pastry cream. But the next night, here's what the mascarpone looked like:

And here's what the sink looked like:

I used some decaf espresso to dip the savoiardi in:

Here's the final product:

And another one:

You can really see the layers in this shot...mmmmmmmmm:

4 year old approved:

This was such a fun challenge! I admit, I thought tiramisu was one of those desserts that had been done too many times before and that this would be boring. But making everything from scratch was awesome, and really, not too taxing. Thanks for a fabulous challenge, Deeba and Aparna! This was truly a Daring challenge!

It looks just great!! Sponge fingers are a little expensive here and mascarpone is REALLY expensive. I might make my own mascarpone the next time. I love the pics of your girls enjoying the baking and eating! Well done!